Thursday, December 18, 2008

Iowa’s Financial Bailout: Sell the Lottery

Just a few months ago when the national and world economies collapsed, Iowa Governor Chet Culver, and the Democrat Leaders in the State House and State Senate assured us that Iowa’s economy was still strong and that thanks to the Democrats we have a balanced budget, $600 million dollar cash reserve, and a AAA bond rating. Here, let me translate that for you. Umm we don’t talk about the 1 Billion dollars of increased spending over the last two years, things are great, and you should thank us by voting Democrat.

Now its doom and gloom and I wonder if the average Iowan recognizes their hypocrisy?

What scares the living daylight out me is the fact that in addition to their increased spending, they have also already passed significant tax and fee increases.

They raised the cigarette tax by a dollar per pack.

They increased vehicle title fees dramatically, yet the Iowa DOT says our public road system will experience a $4 billion shortfall in funding for construction and maintenance of public roads over the next 20 years and thus they want a fuel tax increase.

With property values either stagnant or in decline, local municipalities continue to increase the valuations of our homes to generate more revenue, yet many people could not see their home for its assessed value.

Yet with all of these increased fees and taxes Governor Culver and his Democrat friends are going to come and ask for more of your hard earned money because they have to, there is no way around it.

Things are so bad Culver is considering selling the Iowa Lottery to a casino operator. Props to the guys at City View for scooping this one. We don’t know they term of the lease, but we do know that it will be leased for a one time lump sum. Its deals like this that we must oppose. This has absolutely nothing to do with doing what’s best for Iowa, this is all about making sure Chet Culver can paint a good fiscal picture, just like the Dems did in 2008, so he can get reelected.

Right on Krusty!! A mess in the budget has been created. The conservative approach to this problem is cutting government programs that are not effective and reducing corporate taxes to entice economic development. However, these options are not on the table.

Time 21 should help the road infrastructure budget even in the short-term. Each of you will realize this significant tax increase when you pay your next car license fees. It’s dramatic. Obama's stimulus package also sounds like it will send money down to the States for road development; I don't think taxing gas should be an option, especially when the feds are kicking around the idea to increase it by .20 a gallon.We need to keep fighting the good fight and calling those out that feel raising taxes is an option!

From the article it seems they'll get a lump sum plus a cash stream amounting to 22% of the sales. Note sales, not profits. Let's see if anybody takes that deal.

But that's a distraction, the real story here is THEY DON'T WANT TO CUT THE BUDGET! The liberal advocacy groups have been screaming already about cuts and the Dems know they are between a rock and hard place with an irresistable force coming right at them.

But as Grandmaster Vaudt says, 75% of the budget goes to education and Medicare, that's where the cuts must be (or efficiences found). Education is 66% of the budget so really that's where the majority of cuts are going to be.

In some ways I don't mind. This has been a bitch of mine for years. Does everyone realize we blow 2/3 of our budget on education, and for what? Oh yeah, that's right: for the kiddies to get a top notch education and the vamoose out of here with tires squealing, because there are no jobs to be had in most parts of the state.

All so we can have the vaunted #1 rating in education. So we're pouring money down a black hole so we can educate kids for the rest of the nation. I'd rather be #10 and have a decent state economy than continue the insanity we've been doing for 30 years. We have to start doing things differently.

We've been talking about the future of the RPI. Well I think we've found our reason to be at least for 2010. It's time to get the monster under control.

I hope and pray that you consider launching a website, a facebook page, a YouTube site and a blog and consider really pushing those Lyon, Sioux and Plymouth County constituents to check those features out on a daily basis - presuming you update them on a daily basis.

You might even be able to raise some money from said website as well, which would help some of our more endangered Senators or solid challengers.

Keep up the good work and I hope that our legislators (both Senate and House) can help with pushing the message through alternative means because we know that our friends at the Register probably aren't going to be of as much help.

Here's a couple of suggestions for the legislature. Instead of slowly strangling the small school districts financially so they have to merge grow a pair and force the mergers now to eliminate all the administrative duplication. Eliminate the Iowa State Patrol. Take the money spent on road officers and give 90% of it to counties to hire more deputies. Eliminate all the administrative overhead, dispatchers, buildings, etc. that the state patrol has. Fix the roads we have instead of building new ones.